Metal Gear has been with us for three decades, providing plenty of stealthy sneaking, over-explained political espionage, and a whole host of weirdness. Some of its most interesting moments come from the eccentricity of Hideo Kojima, a man who consumes media and pop culture whole before bleeding it out into the games he creates. Some of those influences are from horror, which is somewhat unsurprising given his adoration of the likes of John Carpenter and Nicholas Wending Refn. While it’s fairly rare to find these horror-themed moments when taking in the sheer amount of hours you can spend playing them, they tend to be pretty effective changes in pace.
There wasn’t really the sophistication to do much of anything in the early Metal Gear titles. It would take until 1998’s Metal Gear Solid, the breakout title in the series, and for aueter Hideo Kojima.
WARNING: SPOILERS FOR METAL GEAR SOLID 1-5, AND METAL GEAR SURVIVE FOLLOW
Metal Gear Solid: Bloodshed and Mindgames
Metal Gear Solid saw FOXHOUND operative Solid Snake return to infiltrate Shadow Moses Island, found in the harsh wilds of Alaska, and stop a terrorist cell led by his clone brother, Liquid Snake (Metal Gear is not an entirely serious series in case you hadn’t already guessed). The terrorists want the remains of the man from whom Liquid and Solid Snake were cloned, the legendary Big Boss.
The first glimpses of horror in Metal Gear Solid come when Solid Snake goes to find missing scientist Hal Emmerich. As he reaches the final corridor before the scientist’s location in a computer room, he sees multiple soldiers torn to pieces, blood spattered across the walls in a now iconic image. Seconds later we see a mysterious figure, camouflaged very much like the Predator. The figure holds the twitching body of a soldier above his head on the blade of a sword. This is the gory (especially for 1998) introduction to the Cyborg Ninja, and the subsequent battle with him as he loses his mind and screams at you not only makes for a memorable character, but also a disturbing sequence. Time hasn’t been kind to it, but it held a significant impact for many years.
It’s so effective that Kojima tried to one-up it in the sequel with the introduction of Vamp. That scene was far more gory, and to add to the horror feel, Vamp is essentially a vampire. It didn’t quite hold the same weight as that Cyborg Ninja reveal though. The moment was brought full circle with the GameCube remake of Metal Gear Solid, with a scene of the Cyborg Ninja eviscerating the soldiers being the introduction, rather than the immediate aftermath.
If Cyborg Ninja’s bloodbath merely dipped a toe in the pool of visceral horror, then the encounter that follows it is definitely swimming deep in the pool of psychological horror. It’s an encounter that is not just one of the greatest things in the series, but one of the best moments in the entirety of video game history. Ladies and Gentleman, Psycho Mantis.
Psycho Mantis begins his headfuckery by psychically controlling Snake’s companion Meryl Silverburgh, forcing you to knock her out. He then proceeds to lord his mental manipulation over the player by reading your thoughts (memory card), reading your shots, and in the in the ultimate mess with your head moment, he made your TV signal play up. Psycho Mantis made the player feel genuinely helpless, and threw convention out of the window. It may not go out of its way to scare you, but the entire build up to the boss fight contains a creeping dread, and the meta surprises (which were groundbreaking in their execution) replicated the disorientating, almost supernatural, nature of the encounter. Outsmarting Psycho Mantis is one satisfying conclusion to the whole thing.
Oh and he has a neat cameo in Metal Gear Solid 4 too.
Metal Gear Solid 2: Ghost in the Machines
Metal Gear Solid 2 wasn’t quite so tinged with terror. Vamp aside, there wasn’t much that felt supernatural. It isn’t until the lunatic final hours that things get a tiny bit creepy, as the A.I. of Metal Gear Arsenal (a strange submarine/warship hybrid that houses multiple Metal Gear Rays) begins to fall apart due to a virus created by Hal Emmerich’s sister Emma.
Protagonist Raiden sees the mask slip on those he believed he was communicating with for his mission, and the deceptive constructs begin to speak nonsense. Poor Raiden discovers he’s just a pawn for a mysterious faction known as The Patriots, who themselves turn out to be no more than a network of A.I. overseeing and shaping humanity.
Creepy, but not particularly horrifying. Although many of the plot points contained in these final hours are horrifying in the sense of how close to present day reality they feel. Though I’ve not seen any confirmation of a rollerskating terrorist just yet.
Metal Gear Solid 3: Drowning with Sorrow
Metal Gear Solid 3 took us back to what was essentially the origin story for Big Boss, and it ramped up the supernatural feel once again. On the lesser end of the scale going upward, you have a deranged arsonist cosmonaut, a man who behaves like a reptile and shoots poison arrows at you, a man who shoots bees, an ancient sniper who is basically a plant, a sadistic leader who channels electricity and batters people to death in barrels, and the topper? A man who is a ghost. That’s where Metal Gear Solid 3’s biggest horror moments come in.
Naked Snake (aka Big Boss) is captured and tortured in a tense and cruel scene where a gun is repeatedly held to your head, and you watch helplessly as Snake is beaten, threatened, electrocuted, and eventually worse. Snake loses an eye in this brutal encounter, but eventually manages to escape. He’s hunted down in the sewers, where he does his best Dr. Richard Kimble impression by throwing himself off the end of the outlet pipe into the river below. Snake, weakened by his ordeal, struggles to surface from the raging river, and appears to drown.
Snake then awakens to find himself walking along a waist high riverway, but something isn’t quite right. For a start, the trees are on fire. A rainfall douses the burning trees, and in front of Snake, a hooded figure floats up out of the river and hovers just above it. This is The Sorrow.
The Sorrow lectures Snake about the sadness and sorrow of those who have died in battle, then tells Snake he must confront those who he has killed. If you’ve been particularly sloppy with the stealth up to this point and killed a fair amount of soldiers, then you subject Snake to walk upriver, as the shambling ghosts of the dead inch towards you. All the while, The Sorrow floats in the air just ahead of you.
All the time you’re trudging forward, being taunted and criticized by the ghosts of soldiers and deceased Cobra Unit members, and you cannot hurt The Sorrow. The fight ends with The Sorrow touching Snake and seemingly killing him.
The smart trick here being that Snake uses a revival pill that wakes him up in the real world, where he finds he is still in the river he fell into, drowning. Snake manages to escape the water and lives to fight another day. He’s visibly shaken by the ordeal, and you’ve just played his near-death experience.
Metal Gear Solid 4: The Beauty and The Beasts
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots was next on the agenda, and despite being a very, very long send off for Solid Snake (now Old Snake) and company, it only really ramps up the creepy on one occasion
A boss fight with a member of the Beauty and the Beast unit early in the game is unnerving. Laughing Octopus is a woman in a multi-limbed power suit that uses stealth camo and moves much like an octopus..
Her introduction is very much horror-based as she flops inelegantly from the rafters, and slowly stands on her four mechanical tentacles. In case the name wasn’t a giveaway, Laughing Octopus laughs…a lot, and inappropriately (‘people dying…it’s all so fucking hysterical’ she screeches during her intro). She hides during the ensuing fight, which leads to a few jump scare moments if you aren’t prepared.
Things get somehow weirder once you shed her of the Octopus arms too.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom and the Infection
The long (some would say ultimately disappointing) wait for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain followed, and eight years after MGS4, we got the chapter that was supposed to close the loop on Big Boss’ story. Konami’s alleged treatment of Hideo Kojima is probably the most horrific thing that comes to mind about the game (and the horror at the abruptness of the game’s ending didn’t much help), but as far as finding it in game? Well there were two pretty effective segments that instantly come to mind.
The first comes in the opening hour of Metal Gear Solid V. As Big Boss lies in hospital after awakening from a lengthy coma. Helpless in his bed, he watches as an assassin murders a nurse and doctor in front of him, before she sets her sights on him. The assassin is dispatched by Boss’ neighbouring patient, and the pair proceed to try and sneak out of the hospital as a death squad comes hunting the halls.
What follows is a tense escape, as an emaciated Big Boss crawls through a slaughter of staff and patients alike. At one point he hides under a hospital bed, and ends up eye to eye with a freshly-killed patient.
It wouldn’t be Metal Gear if something odd and almost supernatural didn’t get thrown into the mix and Metal Gear Solid V’s opening is no exception. The Man on Fire repeatedly appears during the hospital escape, a hulking, familiar-looking, man (often flanked by another familiar-looking character) who as the name might imply, is literally a man on fire. He ambles towards Boss, eyes literally glowing brightly as he bellows an inhuman roar of rage. His slow walk towards you is especially menacing as Boss is barely able to stand upright, and in no position to fight such an intimidating behemoth.
Boss eventually escapes the hospital, but the Man on Fire makes sure he shows up a few more times over the course of the game. While other supernatural-esque monsters are introduced, none have the same initial impact as the Man on Fire.
The other really significant moment of horror comes closer to the end. Boss (now known as Venom Snake) returns to Mother Base, his offshore headquarters for his private military group Diamond Dogs, and discovers there’s been a quarantine applied to the laboratory. The Wolbachia virus that had been tested on has been exposed to beta radiation and killed the staff inside the labs. Well, sort of, as video footage shows the infected rising up once again and attacking a rescue team.
Venom Snake has to go in and investigate, and the whole area is reminiscent of a typical viral outbreak film scene. Tragically, Venom Snake must destroy the infected, all of whom are people he (and the player) have personally recruited to work on Mother Base. Snake ends the gruesome mission covered in the blood of comrades, and clearly affected by what he has been made to do.
Bonus -Metal Gear Survive: Lord of Dust and Hunger
I couldn’t do a horror in Metal Gear article and not mention Metal Gear Survive, which is easily the most horror-laden title of all, albeit in a spin-off. It’s also not subtle about it either. You play as a stranded soldier from Big Boss’ army. You’re in a different dimension that looks a lot like the maps from MGSV, and you must gather food, water, and supplies to survive. Oh and there happens to be undead soldiers with crystalline structures sticking out of their heads, a deadly choking mist, and a Kaiju-sized entity roaming about in it.
The early hours of Metal Gear Survive are brutal, harsh, and terrifying. You are fighting hunger and thirst as you try to gather supplies in near-darkness, and you’re only defense is a pointy stick against roaming packs of undead. When things get taken indoors, shit gets even more unnerving, as you cannot put much distance between you and the fiends.
It’s when you emerge from such an encounter early on that you emerge to see a frankly humongous creature walking past your location, and it’s a genuinely unexpected curveball. From then on, you can be in the mist and you’ll occasionally feel the thud of its many feet through the controller, and perhaps glimpse its towering shadowy form in the gloom. It adds a Lovecraftian element to the horror.
